## Facts

- Fourteen-year-old Donald T. Bauman rode a bicycle downhill on a Seattle street at about 9:30 p.m.
- At the base of the hill, Robert S. Crawford turned left in front of Bauman, and the bicycle and car collided.
- Bauman’s bicycle had reflectors but no headlight, despite a local ordinance and state statute requiring a bicycle headlamp after dark.
- Bauman suffered serious leg injuries, including fractures requiring multiple surgeries, hospitalization, casting, and extended use of crutches.
- Bauman sued Crawford for damages; Crawford asserted contributory negligence, emphasizing Bauman’s violation of the bicycle-lighting requirements.

## Issues

1. Whether a minor’s violation of a statute or ordinance constitutes negligence per se in a civil negligence action.
2. Whether the jury may instead consider a minor’s statutory violation only as evidence of negligence under the special child standard of care.
3. Whether instructing the jury on both negligence per se and the child standard was prejudicial instructional error requiring a new trial.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Washington reversed the Court of Appeals and remanded for a new trial.
- The court held that a minor’s statutory violation does not establish negligence per se.
- The court ruled that a minor’s statutory violation may be admitted, in proper cases, as evidence of negligence to be weighed under the child standard of care.
- The court concluded the negligence-per-se instruction, given alongside the child-standard instruction, was erroneous and not harmless in light of the jury’s 95% contributory-negligence allocation to Bauman.

## Legal Principles

- Children in negligence cases are judged by the care a reasonably careful child of similar age, intelligence, maturity, training, and experience would use under similar circumstances.
- Negligence per se, which treats statutory violation as conclusive negligence, is incompatible with applying the child standard to minors.
- A minor’s violation of a safety statute or ordinance may be relevant and admissible as evidence, but the trier of fact must still determine negligence using the child standard.
- A jury instruction that effectively makes a minor’s statutory violation dispositive on negligence misstates the law and may require a new trial when it likely affects fault allocation.

## Conclusion

The court rejected negligence per se for minors and required that a child’s statutory or ordinance violation be considered only as evidence of negligence, evaluated under the special child standard of care; because the jury was instructed otherwise, the case was remanded for a new trial.


Bauman v. Crawford, 104 Wash. 2d 241, 704 P.2d 1181 (Wash. 1985)